Committee reflects ‘unity and common purpose’ in 2012 to re-elect Obama, help Pelosi reclaim Speakership, and make a difference on key state ballot measures

SAN FRANCISCO (July 27, 2012) — California Democratic Party Chair John Burton administered the oath of office to the newly elected members of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee Wednesday night at the first general meeting of the local Democratic Party’s governing board following the June 5th Primary Election.

Veteran Democratic activist Mary Jung was unanimously elected to serve as the San Francisco Democratic Party’s chair, and several DCCC members were elected to fill leadership roles that will be critical to the local party’s success heading into the November 2012 General Election. Top priorities discussed at the public meeting include re-electing President Obama, returning the Speakership to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi by helping reclaim a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and pushing to expand the number of Democratic voters citywide.

“I’m honored to serve as Chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, and I look forward to working hard with my fellow Democrats in an election year with so much at stake,” said Party Chair Mary Jung. “San Francisco Democrats elected a terrific team to lead our county central committee, and I think it reflects a spirit of unity and common purpose. I’m confident in our ability to help return President Obama to the White House, make Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi Speaker again, re-elect Senator Feinstein, and pass Gov. Brown’s revenue measure so California can maintain vital public services, restore quality education for all, and support our most vulnerable.”

Other officers elected at the general meeting held at the California State Office Building’s Milton Marks Auditorium on Golden Gate Avenue are: First Vice-Chair (Finance) Zoe Dunning; Second Vice-Chair (Issues) Alix Rosenthal; Third Vice-Chair (Voter Registration) Trevor McNeil; Fourth Vice-Chair (Club Chartering and Development) Leah Pimentel; Recording Secretary Kat Anderson; Treasurer Tom Hsieh; Corresponding Secretary Matt Dorsey; and Parliamentarian Arlo Hale Smith. Rafael Mandelman will serve on the DCCC’s Slate Card Committee along with the Chair and Treasurer. A committee tasked with proposing party bylaw changes to incorporate requirements of the Ralph M. Brown Act, which assures public access and participation in local government public meetings, will include David Chiu, Arlo Hale Smith, Matt Dorsey and Hene Kelly. That ad hoc committee will seek to fully harmonize local party bylaws with relevant provisions of state law to address concerns that the election of six members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to the DCCC may occasionally trigger Brown Act requirements.

The committee also adopted two resolutions: one in support of placing AB 1648, a campaign finance reform measure known as the DISCLOSE Act, on the California ballot; and another expressing the Democratic Party’s support for City College of San Francisco.

About the San Francisco Democratic County Central CommitteeSan Francisco’s Democratic County Central Committee, or DCCC, is the governing body of the local Democratic Party as defined in California’s Government Code and Elections Code. The DCCC is comprised of local Democrats elected by voters in each Assembly District, as well as partisan-level Democratic elected officials and nominees who serve as Ex-Officio Officers. Current members elected from the 17th Assembly District are: John Avalos, David Campos, David Chiu, Malia Cohen, Petra DeJesus, Matt Dorsey, Bevan Dufty, Zoe Dunning, Leslie Katz, Rafael Mandelman, Carole Migden, Leah Pimentel, Alix Rosenthal, and Scott Wiener. Members elected from the 19th Assembly District are: Kat Anderson, Kelly Dwyer, Bill Fazio, Tom Hsieh, Mary Jung, Hene Kelly, Meagan Levitan, Eric Mar, Trevor McNeil and Arlo Hale Smith. Ex Officio members are: U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, U.S. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, Attorney General Kamala Harris, State Senators Leland Yee and Mark Leno, and Assemblymembers Fiona Ma and Tom Ammiano.

San Francisco, CA August 28, 2011Monday’s counter-demonstration against Anonymous by members of the LGBT Community has been cancelled after Anonymous made assurances that they have no malice against LGBT people.

While many people speak for Anonymous we have been told the group was largely against the release of the Linton Johnson photos, and that they are not planning any similar tactics (sexual images) in the future.

Some community leaders, such as La Mesha Irizarry of the Idriss Stelley Foundation are skeptical but had grave safety concerns for demonstrators. “A counter protest pinning commuters against protesters is itself a dangerous, unstable mix” said Irizarry.

The LGBT group had planned to demonstrate alongside the “Commuters Take Back Bart” group, which is still planning to demonstrate.Lead organizers will be at the Civic Center in the event community members who aren’t aware of the cancellation show up to demonstrate.

“This is ridiculous, whoever told the GLBT community that Anonymous released photos of Linton is a flat out liar. Linton released them himself, perhaps they should be protesting outside of Linton’s house.”]

Let’s see here, it looks like Anonymous will have have a little competition at the next OpBART, which is OpBART III: Tokyo Drift coming up on August 29th, 2011.

So, get ready for two new factions competing with Anonymous for attention:

“Long before becoming Bay Area Rapid Transit’s chief spokesperson, Linton Johnson worked as a television reporter in St. Louis. In the late 90’s he was regularly seen dancing shirtless, with much fanfare, at the Complex.”

All right, how does this help us? It tells us that self-proclaimed Constitutional scholar Linton Johnson was not boning up the law back then, and maybe you’re reflexively defending your friend from Flyover Country, but that’s about all that we can learn from that.

“BART is learning a lesson that requires closer examination,” said Speier, who represents part of San Francisco and San Mateo County. “I believe BART needs to work harder to understand the ever-changing relationship between security and liberty. And to this end, we should replace finger-pointing with constructive dialogue that addresses security measures that go too far.”

“[BART’s $170k per year spokesmodel Linton] Johnson’s exact words, as reported by the Bay Citizen, were: “It is an amenity. We survived for years without cellphone service … Now they’re bitching and complaining that we turned it off for three hours?”

And here’s BART’s CYA letter from this AM, you know, for the record. It sounds quite different from Linton Johnson’s laughable misquotations of the law, exaggerations, spin, tall tales, whatever you want to call what we’ve been getting the past ten days. So that’s refreshing.

(Now when did the term “passengers” become “customers?” Does it sound better to say, “One of our poorly-trained ‘newbie’ officers once again just shot and killed yet another ‘customer’ unnecessarily,” as opposed to, you know, ‘passenger?’ I don’t know.)

BART’s top priority is to ensure the safety of its passengers. Prior to a planned protest on August 11, 2011, BART obtained credible information that led us to conclude that the safety of the BART system would be compromised. Out of an overriding concern for our passengers’ safety, BART made the decision to temporarily interrupt cell phone service on portions of its system. We are aware that the interruption had the effect of temporarily preventing cellular communications for many BART passengers and their families; and we regret any inconvenience caused by the interruption. We want to take this opportunity to share some of the information that led to this decision.

Imminent Threat of Unlawful and Dangerous Activities on BART Platforms

July 11 Protest On July 11, a group gathered at the BART Civic Center Station in San Francisco to protest the fact that, on July 3, a BART Police Officer shot and killed Charles Hill at that station.

During that protest, one person climbed on top of a train and many other individuals blocked train doorways and held train doors open. During the course of the event, which occurred during the peak of rush hour, individuals used BART trains to move between stations, and caused the shutdown or partial shutdown of other stations.

These actions violated the law by creating a serious threat to the safe operation of the BART system, disrupting the service of 96 BART trains (approximately two-thirds of the trains operating during the rush hour), causing the closing of stations, and putting at risk the safety of thousands of passengers and BART employees.

When trains are not able to move or pick up passengers, the platforms can quickly become overcrowded. This is very dangerous due to the increased possibility that people will fall from the platforms onto the trackway. The trackway is five feet below the platform edge and contains the electrified 3rd rail.

Also, when one train stops, all trains behind it must stop. In some cases, trains must stop in tunnels, which delays the arrival of emergency medical help for passengers in need of assistance. Additionally, self-evacuation by passengers in underground tunnels is another potential dangerous outcome of interference with BART service.

Planned August 11 Protest Early in the week of August 8, the BART Police Department received credible information that individuals were planning a surprise demonstration against BART police shootings at specific BART station platforms on August 11. On August 10, BART Police obtained further information regarding the individuals’ plans for color-coded teams to conduct lawless activity on the platforms. The additional information disclosed detailed organizational coordination among multiple “affinity groups” in addition to the organization that had sponsored the July 11 disruption.

The August 10 intelligence revealed that the individuals would be giving and receiving instructions to coordinate their activities via cell phone after their arrival on the train platforms at more than one station. Individuals were instructed to text the location of police officers so that the organizers would be aware of officer locations and response times. The overall information about the planned protest led BART to conclude that the planned action constituted a serious and imminent threat to the safety of BART passengers and personnel and the safe operation of the BART system, at a level that could far exceed the protest of July 11.

Based on that assessment, BART decided to interrupt cell phone service at targeted portions of its system for up to 4 hours, beginning at 4:00 p.m., the time that the individuals were scheduled to assemble. BART notified the affected cellular service providers shortly before it implemented the temporary interruption. Service was turned back on at 7 p.m., earlier than planned, when safety concerns abated.

At the affected portions of the BART system, there was no cellular service on the platform level, and service on the concourse level was also affected in some areas. Cellular service was fully available at the street level and at all above-ground BART stations and trackways.

BART took prudent measures to protect passengers during the time that cell phone service was unavailable. More than 120 extra BART uniformed Police Officers and Operations personnel carrying radios and wearing reflective vests were assigned to be in the four downtown San Francisco stations and on trains traveling between those stations. Additionally, passenger courtesy phones on the platform were available to provide direct communication with Station Agents. BART also has intercoms at each end of each train car, allowing passengers to contact the operator for assistance. No passenger emergencies were reported to BART during the period of the cellular service interruption.

First Amendment Issues For more than 25 years, BART has had a policy regarding the exercise of First Amendment free speech rights in areas of its stations where it can be done safely and without interference with BART’s primary mission of providing safe, efficient and reliable public transportation services. To implement this policy, BART has designated the areas of its stations that are accessible to the general public without the purchase of tickets as unpaid areas that are open for expressive activity upon issuance of a permit subject to BART’s rules. To protect public safety and provide safe and efficient public transportation, BART has restricted access to the “Paid” and “Platform” areas of its stations to BART station employees and ticketed passengers who are boarding, exiting or waiting for BART trains.

BART’s temporary interruption of cell phone service was not intended to and did not affect any First Amendment rights of any person to protest in a lawful manner in areas at BART stations that are open for expressive activity. The interruption did prevent the planned coordination of illegal activity on the BART platforms, and the resulting threat to public safety.

BART’s Future Plans At a special Board meeting on Wednesday, the Board will discuss the temporary interruption of cell service on portions of the BART system that occurred on August 11, and we invite the public to participate in this discussion.

*She had a bet with her husband that she would get less than 80% of the vote (he was confident that she would get 80-something(!) percent) what ascended her to Congress for the rest of her life. She only got 79% of that vote, IIRC, so she won twice in one day.

**You know, the elected official that former KNTV weekend news anchor Linton Johnson didn’t give money to when he was working for that NBC affiliate. Was that against station policy? You Make The Call.

–Online classified sites have to go all the way to protect girls from being trafficked–

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 12, 2010 – Ongoing independent research commissioned by Women’s Funding Network, in partnership with the Georgia-based “A Future. Not A Past.” campaign, has exposed Internet classified sites as the most commonly used platform for buying and trafficking adolescent girls.

A report released in October by the AIM Group, a global team of consultants in interactive and traditional media, found that Village Voice Media, with its backpage.com classifieds site, is the new leader in online sex advertising. The site recently announced the acquisition of an online security specialist and an initial take-down of roughly half of their sex-related categories while putting others under review. The other half of the frequently misused categories to advertise illegal sex, often related to trafficking, remain active and girls continue to be exploited on backpage.

A CNN segment aired yesterday highlights the plight of just one of thousands of girls trafficked online every day. A young woman who was coerced into the sex trade at 14 is suing Village Voice Media, accusing the newspaper conglomerate of knowingly allowing her trafficker to advertise her sexual services on backpage.com, alleging that websites like backpage provide a “safe house” for traffickers and predators to buy and sell girls for sex.

“How many more girls will be trafficked before Village Voice Media takes comprehensive action to protect them? From what we’ve seen so far the answer is not nearly far enough,” says Deborah Richardson, chief programs officer at Women’s Funding Network. “The fact is that girls are being bought and sold online while media companies that provide a platform for this illegal activity increase their profits and market share,” Richardson adds.

“Drastic steps must be taken to combat sex trafficking of girls in the United States. Instead of applying a band-aid approach to the problem, companies like backpage must take action to truly protect girls through improved screening and monitoring, and increased cooperation with law enforcement,” concludes Richardson.

About Women’s Funding Network

As a global network and a movement for social justice, Women’s Funding Network accelerates women’s leadership and invests in solving critical social problems from poverty to global security by bringing together the financial power, influence and voices of more than 160 women’s funds. Learn more at www.womensfundingnetwork.org.

Here’s the thing – when you have more members of the media than protesters at a protest, that’s not a good thing. As it was today on restaurant-choked Ninth Avenue, the site of the worldwide HQ for craigslist.

So, why weren’t these people protesting prostitution/escort/massage classified ads at the HQs of the Bay Guardian and the SF Weekly newspapers today? Well, it’s because then there’d just be protesters and no media attention at all, so there you go.

The mise-en-scene at noon. Can you see the sign on the building in the background? It used to say “craigslist” but it was painted-over this A.M. in anticipation of the melee.

OMG, it’s “Craig Newpimp!” Get it? Craig Newmark is a balding nerd so let’s make fun of that. Also on hand was “Jim Pimpmaster” (instead of CEO Jim Buckmaster). I don’t know, protesters. Did you consider tone when you were putting your joint together?

OMG, counterprotesters! They were loud. They disrupted the disruptors, can you dig? But the protesters were ready to fight back with “They’re With Craig” signs, as if being with Craig is a bad thing. The MSM just loves chatty counterprotesters, don’t you know.

Let’s see here, I think it’s somebody from the US PROStitutes Collective videotaping a counter-counterprotester with the sign while an out-of-town P.R. cookie ducks for cover. Welcome to San Francisco.

On July 8, 2010 at noon the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), Prostitution Research and Education (PRE) and our over 75 co-sponsors will protest Craigslist’s facilitation of sex trafficking at Craigslist’s office, 1381 9th Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94122.

A large portion of Craigslist’s profits come from the sale of commercial sexual exploitation, much of it trafficked, all of it prostituted. Craigslist normalizes and facilitates online pimping – providing an outlet and incentive for sex traffickers to reach renters of human beings. “By providing traffickers and Johns with a virtual red light district, Craigslist is aiding, abetting and enormously profiting from sex trafficking,” says Norma Ramos, Executive Director of CATW.

Our protest is co-sponsored by 75 leading human rights and anti-trafficking organizations and prominent individuals including Equality Now, End Child Prostitution and Trafficking (ECPAT-USA), Center for World Indigenous Studies, Soroptimists International of the Americas, Nevada Coalition Against Sexual Violence, Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres, Asian Americans for Community Involvement, and Gloria Steinem, author Victor Malarek, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and Congresswoman Jackie Speier.

Sex trafficking is fueled by the demand for prostitution along with impunity for its buyers. According to Melissa Farley, author of 20 research articles on trafficking for prostitution, “Today, a majority of men buy sex online from women or children, many of whom are trafficked or controlled by third parties. Craigslist mainstreams prostitution as ‘Adult Services’. This protest exposes these ads for what they really are: the sale of sexual exploitation, paid rape, child abuse, and trafficking.”

Craigslisthas defied and defeated the efforts of attorneys general, a high profile lawsuit and members of Congress who have tried to put an end to their facilitation of sex trafficking. Despite evidence of criminal activity associated with its website, Craigslist remains above the law. “We are sending a message to Craigslist from the human rights community that by hosting these ads they are partially responsible for much of the rank exploitation that is human trafficking,” says Ms. Ramos.

We are calling upon Craigslist to close the euphemistically named “Adult Services” section of their website and set a sex industry-free standard which would help to eliminate human trafficking on the internet.

“Rep. Jackie Speier “Grateful” To Stay In Congress. Speier: Unfinished Work To Do On Consumer Protection, Health Care, Education

Washington, D.C. – Today, ending days of speculation, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) announced that she will remain in Congress.

“I am thankful that so many supporters came forward to urge me to run for statewide office, but after talking it over with my family, I have decided to stay in Congress,” said Speier. “I am convinced it is the right thing to do for my family, and I believe I can best serve my constituents by remaining in Congress and working hard on consumer protection, financial reform, jobs, and health care.”

Jackie in the Halls of Congress:

“Today’s announcement by Speier, who served for 18 years in the state legislature, ends speculation that she will seek statewide office in 2010. She has served in the U.S. Congress since 2008 and is a member of the financial services committee, the oversight and government reform committee, and the select committee on energy independence and global warming.

“My constituents have given me an extraordinary opportunity to protect the environment, the elderly, and a woman’s right to choose,” said Speier. “I am grateful to serve in Congress, and I do not take a single day for granted.”

In November 1978, Speier was serving as a legal advisor to Congressman Leo Ryan when she flew to Guyana to investigate crimes committed by Peoples’ Temple cult leader Jim Jones. While helping captives escape, Speier was shot five times by cult members and left for dead.

Since then Speier has dedicated her life to public service. She has written groundbreaking legislation in privacy and consumer protection, education, and health care.

Over the years Speier has earned a reputation as a reformer. The San Francisco Chronicle said “Jackie Speier has taken on some of Sacramento’s most powerful forces — banks, insurance companies, prison guards, University of California administrators, even legislative leaders — in her crusades for the public interest.” (May 14, 2006)

Speier, 59, graduated from UC Davis and received her law degree from UC Hastings. She is married with two children.”